A man who danced passably well on "Dancing with the Stars". A man who tends to say frightfully sensible things as loudly as possible in the hope that someone will hear. And a man who has been fined a total of $1.5million, some of it for complaining about NBA refs.

It seems as if he has been strangely quiet on that subject for a while. Until Friday, when he just couldn't take it any more. What does the modern human do when he just can't take it any more? He twitters.

A little context: Cuban's Dallas Mavericks aren't all that good this year. They might just scrape into the playoffs, but they wouldn't even scare the bobcat who walked into an Arizona bar last night.

On Friday they played the Denver Nuggets, a team that is slightly better, but also a team that has as one of its members, JR Smith. Regular Cubanists will know that the Mavericks' owner was fined $25,000 for walking onto the court in January and yelling at Smith.

Frankly, I've wanted to do that myself once or twice. The man's body is so dense with tattoos that it looks like a decaying English country house drawing room wall and he always seems to play with a little scowl. He also always plays well against my Golden State Warriors, so that might have something to do with it.

"Your Dad's not an NBA ref, is he?"
CC Mil8

In any case, after a perceived Smith transgression, Cuban tweeted: "how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground?"

Which he then followed up with: "scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call - last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue."

Fights aren't scary. Crew chiefs are.

One can only imagine how the NBA, an organization that seems uncomfortable with Cuban largely because he's more intelligent than most of its members, will react to his modern form of heckling.

And just in case you were wondering whether it really was Mark Cuban doing the twittering, may I offer you his latest tweet: "just so you know, I dont use a "ghost twitter" like some folks do:)"

Oh, if only they'd make him commissioner of the NBA. What fun we'd all have. Basketball would be better for it, too.

About the author

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world.
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